WSG 2: Dulcie Madden
Women's Survival Guide
Happy New Year! Newsletter Volume 2
Welcome, 2021. We are all excited to meet you! Will we return to what we were doing a year ago and the way we were doing it this year? 2020 came with no real expectations beyond an election (and some hope for equality through #metoo). Who knew we would be in full lock down by the middle of March. Every single thing we did came to a halt or changed drastically. While we can knock 2020, there was some pretty serious social justice work done that no one could ignore for the first time in decades.
I suppose it is with some insecurity that we welcome the new year. Expectations need to be reasonable. Perhaps that is something we have learned. Our expectations and our wants before COVID may have outpaced our actual needs for some of us.
My personal resolutions include volunteer work (get off my bum and out of the house), calling my parents more, being more loving to my husband and kids. How about you? Send yours to me and i'll list them in the next newsletter: womenssurvivalguide@gmail.com
Maven of the Week!
DULCIE LIPOMA MADDEN
Dulcie was a co-founder and the CEO of Rest Devices, a Boston-based startup that built software and hardware for parents to help their babies sleep better. She attended Georgetown University, where she studied biology and did a LOT of yoga, getting her teacher’s certificate. She traveled to India in 2004 to focus on her yoga practice, and then she worked at the Indian Institute of Management in Ahmedabad while getting her Masters in Public Health. Following graduate school, she worked in northern Karnataka for four years with the Deshpande Foundation, and she returned home in 2011 to get her MBA from the MIT Sloan School of Management (though she left after the first year to build Rest Devices). Dulcie now lives in New Hampshire with her three small children and her engineer husband, Thomas.
Happy New Year! Please share one or two of your New Years’ Resolutions with me.
I’ve got three this year! My first one is probably standard for many people, and it’s to drink less and run more. Number two is to commit to fewer things - I have trouble saying ‘no’, which means that I get overloaded and then our day to day family life gets unnecessarily insane. Hopefully I can work on balance this year. The last resolution is to buy nothing for myself! I did this in 2019 and I’m excited to do it again this year, as it’s surprisingly fun to shop my own stuff over the course of the year.
How has the pandemic changed your life as a CEO and will some of these changes be permanent?
Well, we actually made the decision to wind down Rest Devices at the very end of 2019. As a result, I was going through wind down stuff right as COVID was hitting, which felt weird and bizarrely presciently timed. The pandemic really amplified the emotions of taking something we had worked SO hard on for so many years - Rest - and putting it to bed. I know I want to build another company, but I’m not quite ready to go all-in on something yet, so right now I’m in latent processing mode. For my current job, I’m very lucky to work at an MIT-affiliated venture capital firm, The Engine, where I head our partnerships and also work with some of our portfolio companies. Everyone is wonderfully smart and it’s a blast.
That said, one of the best things I learned as CEO was that it’s so important to hope for the best but really plan for the worst, and I think that COVID is forcing that behavior adoption for just about everyone. It’s weird to always be thinking about worst-case-scenario planning, but I have a tendency to be blindingly optimistic, so it helps to really temper that. Hopefully that’s a skill I can carry forward in any and all future endeavors.
What are you excited about in work or life now?
We traveled a lot for work for quite a while, so I’m excited to really be at home as a result of COVID. The inability to go anywhere or realistically plan anything has tremendously simplified our life, as there’s no more optionality, so things feel much more simple, if that makes sense. That said, there are definitely days at a time when I don’t leave the house and I worry I’m going slightly Grey Gardens (ha!).
What do you do to relax?
We have a big, old house and a huge, old fireplace, and I love to unwind next to a roaring fire with a book, (currently REAMDE by Neal Stephenson) and a glass of wine.
What category or subject would you add to the Survival Guide and why?
Advice from other people on how to handle awkward and challenging moments, in conversation or otherwise. There are so many times when I don’t immediately have a great response or I inadvertently put my foot in my mouth, and it would be wonderful to hear from others about how they tactfully and gracefully handle those tricky moments in life (and to try to possibly read about some situations in advance so I can actually be possibly prepared).
There’s just so many little things I think about, from aging naturally well (I stopped dyeing my hair last year, which felt like a big step - my hairdresser said that I’m about 80% grey and I nearly died of shock) to trying not to make my terrible bunions worse to figuring out how to take care of my back, which has been really suffering the last year (I know all the usual answers but I still never manage to stretch and do core exercises the way I should, and my lower back 100% lets me know).
A Recipe You Won't Hate
Frittata: From NYT Cooking with editing from me
INGREDIENTS
8 large eggs
½ cup whole milk
Kosher salt and black pepper
2 tbs of olive oil
½ cup finely diced bacon
1 cup diced onion (from 1 small onion)
2 cups diced red or orange bell peppers (from 2 peppers)
several handfuls of pasta or rice
1 (5-ounce) package baby spinach
4 ounces cheddar, feta or parmesean cheese.
For garnish: cilantro and lime wedge
PREPARATION
Heat oven to 375 degrees. In a medium bowl, beat eggs, milk, 1 teaspoon salt and 1/2 teaspoon pepper until smooth. Set aside.
Put bacon in a 10- to 12-inch cast-iron or oven-safe nonstick skillet. Set over medium heat and cook, stirring occasionally, until browned, 4 to 5 minutes.
Add onion, peppers and 1/2 teaspoon each salt and pepper and cook, stirring often, until onions are translucent, 6 to 7 minutes. Add the spinach a handful at a time, stirring after each addition, to wilt.
Add leftover pasta or rice to veggies and sauté long enough for flavor to be absorbed. Add a bit of olive oil if mixture is too dry.
Reduce heat to low and pour in the egg mixture. Stir well to evenly distribute the vegetables and starch, then smooth the top. Drop small nuggets of cheese evenly on top. Transfer to the oven.
Bake until the top is golden brown and the eggs are set, 10 to 20 minutes. When you shake the pan, the eggs shouldn’t jiggle. Turn on broiler to brown the top for a few minutes. Be sure to watch so it doesn't burn. Cool on a rack for about 10 minutes.
Cut into wedges to serve warm or at room temperature. Sprinkle with cilantro and add lime wedge to plate.
Personal Note: recipes for cooking are more of a guide than a map. If you don't want bacon, then, no bacon! If you want more cheese on top, enjoy! Not all experiments with cooking work out. That is what frozen food is for. Enjoy.
Question of The Week:
What is the first thing you will do after all COVID restrictions are lifted?
Answer 1: First thing I will do immediately is go to a restaurant with a big group and start planning a wonderful trip to a different country!!!
Answer 2: Throw a big party at my house, inside!
Answer 3: Hug lots of people!
Answer 4: I will go inside my parents house with my kids and then will fly to California and see my in-laws with in their house.
What do you think? I'd love your feedback.
womenssurvivalguide@gmail.com
Thank you for taking the time to read the WSG Newsletter.
This newsletter is the first step toward the ultimate goal of a web-based community for women, see:
www.womenssurvivalguide.com. When enough people subscribe, the web site can work, but, until then, you can look forward to the newsletter.
Happy New Year!
xo
Kim Druker Stockwell
My current mantra: Remember to breathe deeply.
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